AN OLD LEGEND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 445, 29 August 1928, Page 6

AN OLD LEGEND

A scholar 'of the East, like many Oriental garden lovers, spent his leisure growing paeonies. One day, while tending his wonderful array of these handsome flowers, a beautiful maid, approached him and asked him for employment. She claimed to be an expert gardener, and able to read and write. The scholar found all this to be true, and for several months the maid worked as his assistant. The garden grew even more lovely, while the great books he was writing progressed amazingly. His fame spread, and at last the high priest of the land sent a message that he would pay him a visit. On the morning that the great man was to arrive, the maid was nowhere to be found. At last the scholar seemed to perceive her dimly outlined against a bank of his most perfect paeonies, which rose in that place to the height of young trees. Approachhe was astonished and dismayed to see that the maiden was gradually fading away into the flowers in fact, only her head appeared tangible, the rest mere shadow. “I am not a woman,” she said, bidding him farewell, “but the spirit of paeony. I came to help you because you cared so lovingly for my flowers. Now that y®u are famous, and the high priest is on his way, I become blossom and leaf again.” And she faded quite away.

FAILURES

Failures interest me more, generally than success. If lam asked why, my answer is that they seem to reveal human nature more truly and more encouragingly than anything else in the world. The way a man faces failure *s the best proof of him. What he has done before matters little if, as the outcome of all, in the grip of final and irretrievable ruin, he retains the stature of a man. That places him far more truly than the verdicts of juries or the judgment of society. Sometimes he may prove his worth more surely by failure than by success, sometimes may only just manage to hold his ground; but if he is able to do that without complaint, and without speaking bitterly of those who have compassed his downfall, even so something stands to his credit, and there is a balance on the right sid® —Laurence Ho us man.